JerobaMTG's Rat Raid: Standard Orzhov Rats
Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.
Before We Start
Karumonix, the Rat King from Phyrexia: All Will Be One made it seem like a Rats tribal deck might be going somewhere, but the Standard environment at the time offered very limited support, and it was hard to build a competitive tribal deck. Now Lord Skitter, Sewer King from Wilds of Eldraine arrives leading a crowd of henchmen. Will it work this time? Let’s give it a try!
The Rat Problem: Concept Breakdown
First, let’s examine the abilities of the two Rat Kings.
Toxic 1 (Players dealt combat damage by this creature also get a poison counter.)
Other Rats you control have toxic 1.
When Karumonix enters the battlefield, look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal any number of Rat cards from among them and put the revealed cards into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Whenever another Rat enters the battlefield under your control, exile up to one target card from an opponent’s graveyard.
At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a 1/1 black Rat creature token with “This creature can’t block.”
Karumonix, the Rat King is a powerful card-advantage card that can draw up to five Rats on entering, provided the deck has enough Rat creature cards. The extra toxic looks flashy, but it gives no stat boost and no evasion, so it only works when you hold an absolute numerical advantage. Lord Skitter, Sewer King makes a Rat token every turn, gnawing at your opponent’s graveyard while also drowning them in numbers the longer it survives.
Although both Rat Kings can go wide, they lack the stat boosts that small tribal decks need most. Looking across the Standard card pool, the only lords that offer an effective boost are Twisted Sewer-Witch and Ogre Chitterlord, two expensive non-Rat creatures. Even setting aside the fact that Karumonix, the Rat King can’t fetch them, the curve is too high to put much hope in, let alone a half-baked card like Tattered Ratter that only works in creature combat. So what is cheap and fits the Rat tribal needs? Invasion of New Capenna // Holy Frazzle-Cannon comes into view.
(As a Siege enters the battlefield, choose an opponent to protect it. You and others can attack it. When it’s defeated, exile it, then cast it transformed.)
When Invasion of New Capenna enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice an artifact or creature. When you do, exile target artifact or creature an opponent controls.
Whenever equipped creature attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on it and on each other creature you control that shares a creature type with it.
Equip {1}
Simply put, Invasion of New Capenna is the sacrifice-for-removal effect common in sacrifice decks, and it’s a once-and-for-all exile answer to boot. Rats happen to be plentiful fodder, so it fits the bill nicely. Once transformed, Holy Frazzle-Cannon puts a +1/+1 counter on every creature of the same type whenever the equipped creature attacks. Strap it onto an expendable token and swing once or twice, and the swarm’s bodies get big enough to finish off your opponent.
The Rat Feast: Deck Building
With the sacrifice element in hand, let’s build the deck.
The other Rats in this deck mostly take on the disposable fodder role. Gnawing Vermin, Nezumi Informant, and Lord Skitter’s Butcher are all top picks, and we add Okiba Reckoner Raid // Nezumi Road Captain and Nezumi Prowler to fill out the low end of the curve. Among them, Lord Skitter’s Butcher can both make Rats and turn surplus creatures into cards in hand, and it provides evasion when you need to punch through a battle or your opponent, making it an excellent lubricant. Besides being a two-mana 3/1 beater, Nezumi Prowler can use ninjutsu as needed to return a creature and reuse its enters-the-battlefield ability, and it can also serve as a combat trick that lets Gnawing Vermin, Nezumi Informant, or a Rat token trade small for big.
On the removal side, since Invasion of New Capenna can only deal with creatures or artifacts, the deck has little resistance to other types, especially enchantments, which dominate the current environment. So we include Rite of Oblivion from March of the Machine to answer them, and add some Cut Down to cover the lack of early instant-speed removal. Incidentally, Invasion of New Capenna can serve as fodder for Rite of Oblivion; when you’re behind and can’t knock out the battle, you can sacrifice it to use as removal.
To make up for the lack of size, we also add Invasion of Gobakhan and Transmogrant’s Crown as reinforcement. Invasion of Gobakhan lets us see our opponent’s hand and disrupt one of its cards, covering our Rats’ deployment. The transformed Lightshield Array puts +1/+1 counters on all creatures that attacked at the beginning of the end step, and it even comes with a built-in Heroic Intervention to stop your opponent’s sweepers. Its suppressive power against aggressive decks is plain for all to see. Besides providing a stat boost, Transmogrant’s Crown draws a card when the creature dies, which suits a sacrifice deck’s need to replenish resources, so you never lose card advantage whether you trade creatures or sacrifice them as fodder. In addition, the utility land Drannith Ruins can pump up the little Rats in the mid to late game, and on a Nezumi Prowler that came in via ninjutsu, the assault effect is even more pronounced.
Wave of Rats: Piloting Guide
Demo Video
By now, I’m sure readers understand that this is a tribal aggro deck with sacrifice as an add-on. It can be played quite linearly, curving out according to mana cost, with two main principles to keep in mind:
- Avoid overextending
- Make good use of Nezumi Prowler
There’s surely no need to explain why you should avoid overextending: with Rat-sized bodies, a single Brotherhood’s End clears your board, not to mention Sunfall also turns them into your opponent’s Incubator count. Trying to take everyone out in one go only to be taken out in one go yourself is no laughing matter. This matters in any matchup where a sweeper is possible, especially in sideboard games. In play, besides holding back cards in moderation, we can also use Lord Skitter’s Butcher to turn surplus tokens into cards in hand, or strengthen our attackers with things sweepers can’t touch or that cost nothing when swept, like Transmogrant’s Crown, Drannith Ruins, and Restless Fortress.
In the mid to late game, Nezumi Prowler can use ninjutsu to gain further resources or deal unexpected losses to your opponent. For example, after a row of Rat tokens attacks and your opponent has declared blocks, you can pop in Nezumi Prowler to give the Rat blocked by your opponent’s key creature deathtouch and lifelink, letting a little thug trade for an elite monster. Or when your opponent is defending a battle or a planeswalker, you can drop in Nezumi Prowler to deal the extra damage that takes out the planeswalker or battle. Or you can return Nezumi Informant, Lord Skitter’s Butcher, or Karumonix, the Rat King to have them re-enter and earn their effect once more.
The main deck is designed mainly to fight regular creature decks or midrange decks, and against control decks with almost no creatures it has a lot of dead cards. So besides the traditional Duress, we also prepare the cheap, high-damage Tangled Colony and Tribute to Horobi // Echo of Death’s Wail to replace Gnawing Vermin and Invasion of New Capenna, which perform poorly in these matchups. Against fast aggro decks such as Mono-Red and Soldiers, we bring in cheap instant-speed removal like Elspeth’s Smite and Parasitic Grasp, then use Destroy Evil to handle white-based midrange cards like Wedding Announcement and Virtue of Loyalty, as well as the Leyline Binding and big creatures in Domain decks. Finally, we keep one Sunfall as the trump card to turn the game around.
Conclusion
“Since we’re already in white, wouldn’t it be better to put Wedding Announcement in the main deck?” True, whether from the sacrifice angle or the go-wide creature angle, Wedding Announcement is flawless apart from being a bit slow. But the three-mana slot is already quite crowded, and if we’re comparing resources, Karumonix, the Rat King can do it better and more promptly. Cutting Rat cards to make room for Wedding Announcement would also hurt Karumonix’s value and push the deck toward a generic Orzhov sacrifice midrange deck, which would defeat the original intent. If you don’t mind that, of course you can make the change or use it as a sideboard card. The point of playing games is to have fun yourself, isn’t it?
- Title
- JerobaMTG's Rat Raid: Standard Orzhov Rats
- Author
- JerobaMTG
- Created at
- October 24, 2023
- License
- This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 .
